“Since
he lost the election, Al Gore has become a certified celebrity, a
popular prophet of global warming....When Al Gore ran for President in
2000, he was often ridiculed as inauthentic and wooden. Today, he is
passionate and animated, a man transformed....What about the idea of the
honest broker who goes to the two candidates [Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton] and helps push one or the other of them off to the side?...He’s
not ruling it out, but he says he already has a job — as he puts it, ‘PR
agent for the planet.’”
— CBS’s Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, March 30. [48 points]

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Runners-up:

“For
Uma Thurman, whose credentials on the subject of sexy are impeccable,
there was no question that ‘the man’s adorable.’ ‘Of course he’s sexy,’
she said. ‘He seems to be flourishing and following his calling. It’s
just the most enviable thing in the world, like watching a beautiful
racehorse run.’ Al Gore, sexy man. The thinking girl’s thoroughbred.”
— The WashingtonPost’s Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan in
a December 12, 2007 Style section item about Gore’s Nobel Prize. [46
points]

“How
can you, given the passion that you feel about this issue and the
enormity of the dimensions that we’re dealing with here, turn down the
idea that you could be in the administration as a Vice President or as
an energy czar or as both?...There is no power like 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue for setting the agenda, for drawing attention to it, for moving
the country, and for moving Congress. Mr. Vice President, no one knows
that better than you do.”
— NBC’s Tom Brokaw to Al Gore, July 20 Meet the Press. [43
points]

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“The
most important reason [Al] Gore should be Vice President is that he’s
suffered and learned. He has the temperament some of us reach on our
death beds....If there’s anything we need to rescue us from the last
eight years, it’s brains, good judgment and experience. Obama has the
first two. Gore has all three.”
— Former Time correspondent Margaret Carlson in a column posted
June 19 on Bloomberg.com. [35]